grass family

noun

1.

the large plant family Gramineae (or Poaceae), characterized by mostly herbaceous but sometimes woody plants with hollow and jointed stems, narrow sheathing leaves, petalless flowers borne in spikelets, and fruit in the form of seedlike grain, and including bamboo, sugar cane, numerous grasses, and cereal grains such as barley, corn, oats, rice, rye, and wheat.

grass family of monocotyledonous flowering plants, a division of the order Poales. The Poaceae are the world's single most important source of food. They rank among the top five families of flowering plants in terms of the number of species, but they are clearly the most abundant and important family of the Earth's flora. They grow on all continents, in desert to freshwater and marine habitats, and at all but the highest elevations. Plant communities dominated by grasses account for about 24 percent of the Earth's vegetation.